Buddy Holly, '20 Golden Greats'

The country-weened Texan put his trademark hiccup on springy rockabilly, tight rave-ups and orchestral ballads – an eclecticism that had a huge impact on the future Beatles. "Rave On," "Peggy Sue" and "Not Fade Away" made
Holly
one of rock's first great singer-songwriters.

Or, they want you to actually read the beautifully written pieces about each band written by so many legends themselves, rather than just skim over a list of names and start complaining when it doesn't exactly correspond with your own opinions without stopping to ask why they thought that album was significant.

There's always been an idiot generation and then the alternate side of that generation that actually has good taste. Look at disco. Mainstream 70's shit. Meanwhile people with good taste were listening to Beatles, Doors, Zeppelin, Floyd, Velvet Underground, etc. etc. The art oriented music that they didn't play on the radio. Same goes today. Shit music on the radio, fantastic music that you won't hear on the radio unless your maybe on a college campus. All the old folks who grew up during the 60's and 70's don't take the time to dig around mostly because their listening to their own generations music just assuming that the current generation is composed of idiots. Exactly how their parents were when they were kids. Don't generalize my generation into a bunch of dipshits that watch twilight and highschool musical, and listen to Hanna Montana pls.

Ryan, I don't know where you were in the 70s, but Beatles, Doors, Zeppelin, Floyd were all most assuredly all over the radio then where I lived, both in singles-oriented radio stations and album-oriented-rock radio stations (that would play any song from an album, not just the single). You're going to have to dig deeper to find stuff more convincingly "alternative" -- maybe Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, most of progressive rock (besides Yes). I don't remember any of that on the radio at the time, or a lot of the excellent progressive rock. Queen, Kansas, and Styx are all exceptions, having high radio airplay for their most famous work while also melding progressive, rock, &c.

With your comments i'm not even sure where you were in the 70's bub. Floyd only had 1 song in rotation at the time there snow leopard. I like when people try to come off like music critics. It makes me laugh. Thanks for the laugh.

As a Radio Personality in the early 80's, I remember hearing Pink Floyd on the radio often in the 70s. I remember hearing "several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave grooving with a pict" from Ummagumma when I was like 8. That was in 1973. I actually liked small furry animals and that song alone brought me to Pink Floyd.

Key word is ROTATION. As a DJ I always broke rotation and played what I wanted to play.

You must have lived in an anemic city if all you heard was one song from Pink Floyd in the 70s

I remember where I was in the 70's, and I heard a great deal of Pink Floyd on my radio. Considering that the albums "Dark Side of The Moon" and "Wish You Were Here" reached number 1 in the US within weeks of their releases (and "Animals" made it to number 3), I'm surprised that you only heard one of their songs in rotation. I still remember the song "Time" rattling my dad's speakers from the AM/FM radio in our old station wagon, and we got rid of it in '78.

Being a pretentious douche is just as bad if not worse than only listening to mainstream Disney pop and worshiping films like Twilight and High School Musical. All those artists you mentioned were hugely successful and would get regular radio play.

What radio station in the 70's wasn't beating you to death with the Beatles, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stones, Who, etc. One or two of those bands were ok, but most were severely overrated. Same with a lot of that periods underground stuff. Velvet, New York Dolls, etc. were awful too. Most of these lists are compiled as a popularity contests, rarely are the views accurate. Rolling Stone continually forces the 60's garbage down our throats and not the really good music that is never talked about or played on the radio. Back then bands like Rush were new and definitely were not getting airplay until later in the 70's/80's. The list goes on and on. Hippies think that music stopped being good or valid in 1969 unless it was one of those bands that are still around, or a band that reminds them of that time. Lots of things have happened since the 60's if you open your eyes, take the time to look and listen. They do not.

You are a fool. It's purely convenient to "skim over" the bands for personal use and reference, If we wanted to read pieces of prose about the artist, which I'm sure many of us would like to; it would only be of value to the artists we personally enjoy listening to. Such information can be found elsewhere, not here, where a simple 1-500 list is expected.

so youre saying whats the point of reading if you dont know what you're reading about? you are the fool actually. thats like saying what is the point of traveling if the place you're going is going to be different. screw yourself

Or: How about this in the age of the Internet? Make each entry a LINK. With a beautiful as-many-pages-as-you-want-to-write article about the album. Or even pictures. Or ads. Whatever you want. Slideshows like this are LAME.

Rolling Stone has been neither 'counter-culture' nor relevant since about 1975. At one time it employed people like Hunter Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke; today it has become just another Disney-like trash culture piece of shit.

What a stupid thing to complain about. For the real music lover, the experience (and I call it an experience), of slowly working your way through this list is half the fun. This list is NOT RS's survey, but rather the hundred's of collaborators who poured in their experienced and informed opinions until the list was a result of a collective outpouring both old AND young artists, execs, producers, musicians and historians/journalists and others over the last 50-60 years. It's really a comprehensive and probably accurate list, albeit highly subjective. Anyone who complains about the bias of this list needs to go back and piss and moan to the very artists and musicians they listen to. They are the ones who submitted this list, not RS (with the exception of a few of RS's main contributors over the years). So it's as much Lil' Wayne's fault as it is 'Fat's' Domino's. And I challenge anyone to give me an album that is better in all categories collectively than Sergeant Pepper's. And before you do, I hope you know your history of what it took to make that album, and the lasting effect it has had upon all popular music in any genre over the last 40 years.

Edward, you're right. I had fun skimming through all of the albums. As with everyone, I felt that some of them should have been higher on the list but that is my opinion only. I'm sure the individuals who compiled this list took great care to see that the artists' work was placed in a fair way in this top 500. It is an amazing assemblage and to complain about how it is set up is kind of goofy. I've enjoyed looking through titles that I was less familiar with rather than just picking my favorites from a group of thumbnails. What would be the fun in that?

Ok it's me again after a 10 month hiatus! I kept getting replies to this article but I could never open the link, it just kept saying "Error 404". Finally found it, anyway, when this was first published last year there was no 10 album breakdown, it was just "HIT NEXT" "HIT NEXT" etc etc thanks though to the people who have come on since the breakdown was put on and telling me that I'm an idiot for not noticing. Go hide in a cave.

Or, they want you to actually read the beautifully written pieces about each band written by so many legends themselves, rather than just skim over a list of names and start complaining when it doesn't exactly correspond with your own opinions without stopping to ask why they thought that album was significant.

There's always been an idiot generation and then the alternate side of that generation that actually has good taste. Look at disco. Mainstream 70's shit. Meanwhile people with good taste were listening to Beatles, Doors, Zeppelin, Floyd, Velvet Underground, etc. etc. The art oriented music that they didn't play on the radio. Same goes today. Shit music on the radio, fantastic music that you won't hear on the radio unless your maybe on a college campus. All the old folks who grew up during the 60's and 70's don't take the time to dig around mostly because their listening to their own generations music just assuming that the current generation is composed of idiots. Exactly how their parents were when they were kids. Don't generalize my generation into a bunch of dipshits that watch twilight and highschool musical, and listen to Hanna Montana pls.

Ryan, I don't know where you were in the 70s, but Beatles, Doors, Zeppelin, Floyd were all most assuredly all over the radio then where I lived, both in singles-oriented radio stations and album-oriented-rock radio stations (that would play any song from an album, not just the single). You're going to have to dig deeper to find stuff more convincingly "alternative" -- maybe Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, most of progressive rock (besides Yes). I don't remember any of that on the radio at the time, or a lot of the excellent progressive rock. Queen, Kansas, and Styx are all exceptions, having high radio airplay for their most famous work while also melding progressive, rock, &c.

With your comments i'm not even sure where you were in the 70's bub. Floyd only had 1 song in rotation at the time there snow leopard. I like when people try to come off like music critics. It makes me laugh. Thanks for the laugh.

As a Radio Personality in the early 80's, I remember hearing Pink Floyd on the radio often in the 70s. I remember hearing "several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave grooving with a pict" from Ummagumma when I was like 8. That was in 1973. I actually liked small furry animals and that song alone brought me to Pink Floyd.

Key word is ROTATION. As a DJ I always broke rotation and played what I wanted to play.

You must have lived in an anemic city if all you heard was one song from Pink Floyd in the 70s

I remember where I was in the 70's, and I heard a great deal of Pink Floyd on my radio. Considering that the albums "Dark Side of The Moon" and "Wish You Were Here" reached number 1 in the US within weeks of their releases (and "Animals" made it to number 3), I'm surprised that you only heard one of their songs in rotation. I still remember the song "Time" rattling my dad's speakers from the AM/FM radio in our old station wagon, and we got rid of it in '78.

Being a pretentious douche is just as bad if not worse than only listening to mainstream Disney pop and worshiping films like Twilight and High School Musical. All those artists you mentioned were hugely successful and would get regular radio play.

What radio station in the 70's wasn't beating you to death with the Beatles, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stones, Who, etc. One or two of those bands were ok, but most were severely overrated. Same with a lot of that periods underground stuff. Velvet, New York Dolls, etc. were awful too. Most of these lists are compiled as a popularity contests, rarely are the views accurate. Rolling Stone continually forces the 60's garbage down our throats and not the really good music that is never talked about or played on the radio. Back then bands like Rush were new and definitely were not getting airplay until later in the 70's/80's. The list goes on and on. Hippies think that music stopped being good or valid in 1969 unless it was one of those bands that are still around, or a band that reminds them of that time. Lots of things have happened since the 60's if you open your eyes, take the time to look and listen. They do not.